What do you get when you bring together a team of seasoned preachers – Peter Adam, Rhett Dodson, Ian Duguid, Ajith Fernando, David Jackman, Simon Manchester, David Meredith, Josh Moody, Douglas Sean O’Donnell, and Richard Phillips – to talk about sermon preparation? This is what Rhett Dodson does for us in his Unashamed Workmen: How Expositors Prepare and Preach. Today he talks to us about his work.
Books At a Glance (Fred Zaspel):
First, what is the purpose of your book? And what is the contribution you hope to make?
Dodson:
The main purpose of the book is to promote the exposition of God’s Word and encourage those who are entrusted with this task. We are blessed with many excellent books on homiletics, books we ought to read, study, and return to on a regular basis. But the work of preaching has to be accomplished in the rough-and-tumble world of everyday pastoral life. No two weeks are ever the same, and yet the same task has to be accomplished Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day. I want Unashamed Workmen to give preachers and would-be preachers a peak into the world of men who have devoted themselves to expository preaching and also face the same challenges of ministry as everyone else. How can the work be done? How have others pastored their congregations and devoted themselves to the careful study of Scripture? Both are necessary, but given the time crunch we all face, how can both be accomplished? By giving readers a glimpse into the study habits of various expositors, I hope they can glean methods and approaches that may work for them as they set out the weekly task of preparation.
That’s really the contribution I hope to make as well. I want to help develop faithful Bible expositors.
Books At a Glance:
Tell us how you set out to accomplish this in your book – its plan and approach.
Dodson:
The book’s plan and approach are relatively simple and straightforward. Each of the ten contributors has provided a chapter that narrates his approach to sermon preparation. This chapter is then followed by an expository sermon. By placing these two chapters back to back, the reader is able to follow the author’s work from the study to the pulpit. By reading the sermon, the concepts and principles in the “how I prepare” chapter come to life in biblical proclamation.
Books At a Glance:
Application in preaching is a common struggle for preachers. Can you share some advice with us from your team of authors as to how we can prepare our sermons more effectively in this regard?
Dodson:
In application we are concerned with the pastoral intent of the passage, so the first and most obvious answer to your question is prayer. Begin by asking the Lord not only “What does this passage mean?” but “Why have you given this passage to us?” Peter Adam asks “What is God’s word for these people?” (chapter 1). We must ask ourselves that question so that we do the deliberate, hard thinking that is necessary for application, but we must also ask the Lord, “What is your word for the people to whom you have called me to preach?” He’s the one who can open our eyes and give us insight.
Second, if Scripture is given to us for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16), we ought to ask about each passage “What am I being taught? Is God rebuking or correcting my attitude or behavior with this word? How should I and my people be trained in godly living through what has been written in this verse, paragraph, or chapter?”
Third, David Jackman recommends anticipating the negative reactions that listeners may have to the message. Thinking through ways to address objections can prove fertile ground for application.
Books At a Glance:
In your essay you emphasize the importance of prayer in sermon preparation. Perhaps you can sketch that out for us here. What is the role of prayer in sermon preparation? And for what should the preacher pray?
Dodson:
Both prayer and preaching are means of grace, channels through which God works in our lives. They naturally go together in the theological scheme of things and, therefore, belong together in the “practical” aspect of sermon preparation. If our God and Father to whom we pray is the same God who inspired the Bible through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, then he is able to help us understand his Word and see Christ revealed through Scripture. Prayer, Bible study, and preaching are all thoroughly Trinitarian and, therefore, interrelated!
Sermon preparation ought to be saturated with prayer. We should not think of preaching as preparing a lecture but as heralding the gospel, of proclaiming “Thus saith the Lord” so that the fire of heaven may fall. That cannot and will not happen without prayer.
I pray different things at different stages in the preparation process. When I begin to study the passage, I ask for insight and understanding that I may be accurate and faithful to the Scriptures, that I may teach and preach in keeping with the author’s (and ultimately the Author’s) original intent and purpose. I ask for the Lord to make me a keen observer of the text and to help me to understand its implications. When I am writing the sermon I pray for faithfulness, accuracy, clarity, simplicity, variety, and freshness. Just before preaching I pray for the Holy Spirit’s anointing to preach with simplicity and clarity. I ask for just the right words at the right moment.
Those are the things I personally pray for, along with a smattering of verses from Psalm 119. Really, Psalm 119 is the best place to start. Pray through the psalm and ask for the Lord to give you delight in his Word. If you delight in the Bible, you’ll be a great preacher.
Books At a Glance:
Your book consists of ten preachers each explaining how he prepares his sermons. Of course there are differences in approach, but is there a basic, common instruction we can take away from them all, considered together? If you could reduce all ten to a single lecture in which you recommend how to prepare sermons, what would you highlight?
Dodson:
I would emphasize the following points: 1) Pray; 2) Love God and his Word; 3) Work hard; 4) Keep your finger on the text; 5) Ask a lot of questions; 6) Let the Bible passage you’re preaching drive everything about the sermon; 7) Preach the passage to yourself first so that you can preach it effectively to your people.
Books At a Glance:
Let’s finish up with a related question: What constitutes a “good” sermon? What should a person look for in preaching?
Dodson:
Look for the Bible. Is what the preacher says the same thing that the Bible says? Is the message faithful to Scripture? A good sermon will be tightly tied to the text. It will magnify God and glorify Christ through the Word.
